AMENDED TRANSLATIONS. 171 



No. 28. 



Letter from the chief manager of the Russian American colonies to the 

 board of administration of the Russian American Company. Written 

 from the colonies January 13, 1859. 



CONCERNING FUR-SEALS. 



In accordance with the instructions of the board of administration 

 given in dispatch No. 697, of June 5, 1858, received November 2, be- 

 sides the 10,000 sealskins ordered by previous instructions, 10,061 were 

 sent by the ship Kamchatka of those which had been prepared and 

 packed prior to the receipt of dispatch No. 697 for shipment to New 

 York, and there still remain 3,600 dried and 1,176 salted skins, which 

 will now be sent by the bark Kadiak to San Francisco, to be forwarded 

 to Messrs. Lobach & Shepler. 



With regard to the question of the board of administration as to what 

 number of seals may be killed every year in the colonies without det- 

 riment to the preservation of the species and without impoverishing 

 the rookeries, I have the honor to report that, as is evident from the re- 

 ports of the governors of the Pribilof Islands, where the principal seal 

 rookeries are found, and even those of the Commander Islands, the seals 

 have increased in numbers on all the accessible places to such an ex- 

 tent that the areas occupied by them appear crowded, and it is evident 

 from these reports that it would be possible to kill in all these places, 

 including the small gray seals, as many as 70,000, and even more; but 

 for this it would be necessary to increase the number of hunters and to 

 furnish a sufficient supply of wood to the Pribilof Islands for drying 

 the skins. 



It may be said with certainty that no impoverishment of the rook- 

 eries will appear for a long time from the killing of as many as 70,000 

 fur-seals. 



No. 29. 



Letter from Captain of the First Rank and Knight Ivan Vassilievitch Fur- 

 uhelm, chief manager of the Russian American colonies, to the hoard 

 of administration of the Russian American Company. Written from the 

 colonies May 13, 1860. 



I have the honor to present herewith a table of the skins procured 

 last year from the districts of the colonies, from which the board of ad- 

 ministration will see that 892 more sea otters were killed than in 1858. 

 There has not been such a rich catch since 1814, and this increase was 

 owing entirely to the number killed in the Kadiak district, at Unalaska, 

 and at Urup. 



As regards the otter catch, the Kadiak factory has reported to me 

 that the Chugatches, living at Fort Oonstantine, were permitted with 

 the consent of my predecessor to carry on this hunting, apart from the 

 party sent out by the factory, in places known to them alone; after 

 their arrival at Kadiak, however, with a very large number of sea otters, 

 it appeared that in the summer of 1859 they had hunted in places where 

 there was a close time, and where it will be necessary to send a party 

 from Kadiak this year. After such an occurrence, unfortunately, I do 

 not hope to have as successful results from the hunting as Rear- Admiral 

 Voyevodsky in the last year of his administration of the colonies. 



